According to Yell Business, reviews can also help improve communication and customer service. They give your business credibility and act as social proof, even for very new businesses. Online reviews also provide other customers with valuable company information, with first-hand insights that business owners may not have thought to share.

Reviews are also becoming more prominent as a content format in their own right. Star ratings are increasingly visible in search results, with review add-ons for Google Ads and ratings in local search via Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business). Sometimes, snippets of actual reviews appear in results, making them a highly visible source of information and a frequent stop on the customer path to purchase.

In ranking terms, reviews are also important. The 2017 LocalSEO Guide ranking factors study pegged reviews as one of the most important local ranking factors. The number of good and bad reviews received was determined to play a part in local pack positioning, as was the speed and frequency of response.

Responding to reviews is a way of showing the world how much you care about the customer experience — as well as being a way to earn a few more local SEO brownie points. All reviews should be acknowledged promptly, but it’s particularly easy to succumb to temptation and respond to a negative review as soon as you see it. Before you give in to this impulse, it pays to be aware of the six core types of reviewer so you can formulate an appropriate, effective response to fit.

1. The First-time Reviewer

With only 63% of consumers having left a review for a local business, there are still plenty of shoppers out there who haven’t ever felt moved to review a business.

When you do encounter a first-time reviewer, keep in mind that if yours is the first review they’ve left, they clearly feel quite strongly about their experience (whether good or bad).

How to deal with the First-time Reviewer

You should take a first-time reviewer seriously and if good, appreciate that your service must have been outstanding to push them into leaving a review. Make sure to pass this feedback on to your team, and congratulate them on a job well done!

On the flip side, negative reviews must be delicately handled and considerable thought given to the response.  It’s unlikely that you will receive further interaction after the initial review, even when you do respond, but that shouldn’t impact how you proceed.

In the case of a negative review, ask yourself if there is any truth in the feedback and if changes need to be made internally to rectify the issue being flagged up. If valid, your response should outline the steps that will be taken to avoid this issue again in the future. And, if you disagree with the reviewer’s claims, politely and professionally provide your side of the story. This will help provide context to readers. 

2. The Serial Complainer

Serial complainers are the exact opposite of first-timers and will be prolific reviewers. They’ll have a long and storied history of leaving negative reviews and will likely review every business, product or service they use. They may well be incredibly picky and have unrealistically high standards or expectations of what they have actually paid for.

How to deal with the Serial Complainer

Tread carefully here, as the serial complainer has had lots of experience with other businesses just like yours. They are professionals at making you look bad. Your response will need to be very measured while also addressing the points made. Look at how other businesses have fared when dealing with them and avoid making the same mistakes.

Be aware that the serial complainer is very likely to continue the conversation and will respond back to your comments, often with additional complaints or disagreements. And if you can’t change their mind, don’t be too disheartened! 

3. The Direct Communicator

The direct communicator won’t mince words. They’ll get straight to the point and expect someone senior to take note. These are people who don’t direct their reviews to the world at large, but to you, the business owner.

If they’re negative, they’ll want to receive a very personal response and likely want to have the discussion on the public review site rather than over a private email conversation.

How to deal with the Direct Communicator

When dealing with a direct communicator, don’t be tempted to be similarly abrupt in your response.

Be clear but not overly wordy and don’t resort to a direct or confrontational style. Avoid making excuses too – the direct communicator values straight talk and expects swift action.

4. The Storyteller

The storyteller takes time to craft exceptionally detailed reviews.

They will share the smallest of details and paint a picture of their entire experience – typically including lots of information not directly related to the product or service being reviewed. You can recognize a storyteller by the length of the review. There’ll also be plenty of the reviewer’s own recommendations, suggestions, and advice.

How to deal with the Storyteller

If your storyteller is posting a negative account of their dealings with your business, take time to check and re-check your response before posting, as the storyteller will often be highly critical of replies which aren’t equally as thought out.

This doesn’t mean you should match the tone or length – don’t be tempted to add lots of background info if it doesn’t serve a purpose. Likewise, if they’re sarcastic and snide, don’t be tempted to match this tone, as it’ll likely backfire, and potentially damage onlookers’ opinions of your business.

5. The Sharpshooter

The sharpshooter pulls no punches. The review will be brief and to the point,  and perhaps poorly written or rushed. Don’t respond in kind to a sharpshooter or go too far the other way with a long-winded response.

How to deal with the Sharpshooter

When dealing with a review from a sharpshooter, be conscious that your reply should be concise but not short. Use succinct, clear sentences rather than wordy, elaborate ones to better reflect this type of reviewer’s communication style.

6. The Faker

Most businesses will have fallen victim to a fake review at least once. If you’re in that boat, you’ll agree that the faker is the worst kind of reviewer.

A faker has never used your business or purchased your product. Despite this, they have a grudge and delight in leaving one-star reviews with made-up complaints to damage your online reputation. They may be working on behalf of a competitor (or even be a competitor!) Do some research on them and see if they have links someone who would have beef with you. The review itself may also shed some light on this.

How to deal with the Faker

If you suspect a review is fake, check your customer records to determine if they have ever used your business.

Don’t be tempted to reply straight away if you think it’s fake. Instead, take a look at BrightLocal contributor Ben Fisher’s guide to getting fake reviews removed. In the meantime, focus on acquiring new positive, genuine reviews to push the fake one star down.

We’d love to hear your thoughts

What kinds of reviewers have you encountered and what tips do you have for responding? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.

Not only can this help you identify potential issues and address them promptly to minimize their impact, but it also enables you to respond quickly to all reviews left for your local business. 

This is important for two reasons. Firstly, businesses that respond to reviews tend to perform better in local search. And secondly, because today’s consumers actively check for review responses from business owners. 

How do you monitor reviews?

Monitoring your online reviews simply means you’re going to keep tabs on customer feedback left for you on relevant platforms like Google, Yelp, or Facebook. You can do this manually by checking each review platform individually or by using review monitoring tools.

The first step to monitoring online reviews for your business is to make a list of review sites. This should include both general review sites and industry-specific review sites relevant to your business. If you’re in the hotel or restaurant business, that could mean Tripadvisor. If you’re a tradesperson, that could be Angi. If you’re a contractor, Houzz. You get the idea.

If you’re unsure which review platforms are most relevant to you, you could ask your customers which ones they use. 

You can also add competitors into the mix here and piggyback off their activities. Find out which review platforms they’re most active on—do they have certain badges on their sites, such as a badge from TripAdvisor or Trustpilot? When you search for the company name, which review sites appear at the top of the results page?

As you build your list of sites to monitor, keep a record of any important sites that you don’t already appear on. You’ll need to initiate the review generation process on these platforms.

Manual review monitoring vs. review monitoring tools

When it comes to online review monitoring, you have two options—use a review monitoring tool like BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager or do it manually. 

Manual review monitoring is more time-consuming and runs the risk of reviews being missed. To reduce that possibility, ensure that:

• Your email address is registered with the review platform
• You’ve opted in to receive an alert each time a new review is published. Consider setting up a dedicated email folder for review alerts. 

A review monitoring tool is a more efficient and effective way to keep track of your online reviews.

It’ll do the time-consuming task of checking for new reviews for you. This removes the risk of reviews being missed and enables you to respond promptly. This means you’ll be able to take action quickly in the event of a negative review appearing. Many even offer the opportunity to respond immediately in the tool.

Tools usually allow you to monitor all your review platforms in one centralized location, too.

Whichever route you choose, be sure to keep a log of the frequency of reviews, the volume of negative versus positive reviews, and any action taken as a result of each review. If the rate at which you’re earning new reviews slows down, then further action will be needed to understand why that’s the case.

Understanding trends in your reviews

If you’re manually undertaking review monitoring, you’ll need to carry out an additional task to then make sense of your data. To understand the sentiment and identify common themes, you’ll first need to consolidate the text of the reviews together in one central location, such as a shared Google doc. 

Once you’ve done this, you can use a word cloud generator (Google has a free app here) to help you make sense of the data. The word cloud will show you common words and phrases that have been used. This will give you insight into which products, services, and themes are being discussed most frequently.

Look out for phrases such as ‘fast delivery’, ‘helpful’, ‘good customer service’, and individual product names. This will clue you in as to what people are liking, buying, and wanting more of.

You may also notice that there’s a correlation between these attributes and the reviews in a prominent position on your Google Business Profile. Google takes note when people regularly mention a particular element of service, such as ‘fast delivery’ or ‘outdoor dining’, and will add this as a highlight to your GBP on mobile devices.

How to use BrightLocal for online review monitoring 

If you’re looking for a streamlined way to track reviews across multiple platforms or for multiple business locations, BrightLocal’s Monitor Reviews is a strong option (if we do say so ourselves!) 

Monitor Reviews pulls in reviews from more than 80 review sites, including the big ones like Google, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor, and Angi, as well as industry-specific platforms, all in one handy dashboard. 

This means you can see every new review without hopping between multiple websites, as well as respond to reviews and showcase the top ones on your website, all using BrightLocal. 

Here’s how to get started: 

1. Sign up or log in

Log in to your BrightLocal account, or start a 14-day free trial if you’re new here (welcome!) Then choose the business location or create a new one. Connect your Google and Facebook listings, and BrightLocal will start finding your reviews in the background.

2. Choose the review sources to track

Click Actions → Edit Report Settings to add the additional review sites you want to monitor. You’ll need the listing URLs for each site.

3. Set up alerts

While in the Reputation report settings, choose how often you want the report to run and how often we should email you with your review insights—daily, weekly, monthly, or only when new reviews are found. This ensures you never miss important feedback.

4. Spot trends with Review Insights

Use the Review Insights overview to dig into your review data and see where you need to improve. You can:

• Track review growth over time and spot spikes
• See your average star rating across all review sites
• Check the distribution of star ratings
• View the split of rating per review site to know which sites to focus on

5. View and respond in Reviews → Manage Reviews

After analyzing the data, jump into the full reviews in Reviews → Manage Reviews. Here you can:

• View all your reviews in one place
• Filter by star rating, review site, timeframe, or reviews that haven’t been responded to
• Respond directly to reviews (learn how here)

For more advice on mastering online review monitoring with BrightLocal, enroll in our free Academy course: Level Up Your Local SEO with BrightLocal.

How do I monitor Google reviews?

Monitoring Google reviews can be done either manually or by using an online review monitoring tool. Manually monitoring involves checking Google Business Profile (GBP) for new review alerts. You’ll also be notified via email when a new review is shared, with this notification going to the email address used to manage the GBP account. 

To access reviews, log into GBP and select ‘Reviews’ from the left-hand navigation.

How do I track negative reviews?

You can perform online review monitoring to identify negative reviews as they appear. This can be achieved by using a review monitoring tool or by manually checking the review platforms associated with your business. 

It’s important that negative reviews are quickly addressed to prevent damage to your reputation, so an automated tool is often the best bet. You can find our tips for how to handle negative reviews here.

Track Your Reviews in Real-time

Good or bad, monitoring online reviews doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Whether you track them manually or use an online review monitoring tool, you can see feedback as it comes in, respond quickly, and spot trends to help build reviews across the platforms that your customers use. Here’s to five stars! 

It’s hard to get your brand personality or the personable face of your customer service team across on a review site, so a review response provides a vehicle to do just that. You can use this space to bring your own brand voice to the site, which helps you to create a more authentic engagement with that customer.

The impact of responding to reviews

Our latest consumer review research highlights the importance of responding to Google reviews, along with reviews on other platforms. 

The Local Consumer Review Survey reveals that 96% of consumers read reviews for local businesses. Due to the design of many review platforms  — including Google Reviews — each of those consumers could also have seen the business response to each of the reviews. This is valuable digital real estate that could be used to emphasize unique selling points (USPs), engage with consumers, and build closer relationships with those potential new and recurring customers or clients.  

Seeing a response from a business owner also matters to local consumers, with whether or not a business responds to a review being an important factor for 46% of local consumers. 

It’s clear from this data that consumers place a great deal of importance on businesses taking time to respond. This suggests that knowing how to respond to positive reviews can influence how favorably local consumers view your review profile. 

There’s strong evidence to suggest that responding to reviews — both good and bad — can significantly increase your chances of winning new business. Our research finds that consumers are twice as likely to use a business that responds to all reviews than one that doesn’t respond to any.

The five steps of responding to reviews

Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, needs to be done in a timely manner to be effective and impactful. 

1. Use a tool

If you have a reputation management tool, you may be able to respond to the review directly from the dashboard. Use this if you have one available to you—it streamlines the process and makes it easier to keep track of which reviews you’ve responded to.

Curious about how BrightLocal can help? Skip to the end of this article for a walkthrough on Reputation Manager. 

2. Be proactive

If you don’t have a reputation management tool, build manual response management into your daily schedule. Set time aside each day after you monitor online reviews to respond to new comments. It’s advisable to respond to negative reviews first (even ones you suspect to be fake) in order to limit the damage and put the wheels in motion for dispute resolution.

3. Shape an appropriate response

Reviewers generally fall into a specific category. Identifying which type of reviewer you’re dealing with will help you formulate a plan of action for your response. You can use our ‘Types of Reviewer’ resource to help you do this.

4. Take negative reviews off-site

Negative reviews are a fact of life for any local business. The key to dealing with them is having a honed response process. As a first step, encourage the reviewer to converse with you off the review site. Invite them to send you an email or to give you a call.

Once the issue is resolved, ask them to amend or update their review to reflect the steps taken to remedy the situation.

5. Develop a range of canned responses

If you don’t have time to craft a unique response for every review, develop a stock of templated responses that you can mix and match. Be sure to vary elements to suit the original review, such as referencing a staff member they’ve mentioned, a location (if you have multiple locations), or a particular product, service, or business feature (such as outdoor dining). 

Our handy review response templates—with examples you can copy and paste—are a great starting point if you need help responding to positive reviews.

Responding to reviews Q&A

Does responding to reviews help SEO? 

Responding to reviews is a local SEO ranking factor, with timeliness of response and responding to positive and negative reviews both playing a role. Google has confirmed that managing and responding to reviews does impact local search visibility. 

Many businesses are so focused on generating reviews that they forget to reply to the reviewer. Responding is an easy way to add an additional layer of satisfaction to your customer service. It can also make a person more likely to use your business after they find you in the search results. 

How to respond to a negative review?

When responding to negative reviews, approach with empathy and a genuine desire to resolve the issue. Calmly acknowledge the reviewer’s experience, apologize sincerely if warranted, and invite them to discuss the matter offline. 

Keep your response professional, personalize your reply, and focus on solutions rather than blame. Thank the reviewer for the feedback; it shows you value every customer voice.

How you respond to negative reviews can help show potential customers that you are willing to listen and improve. While negative feedback can be hurtful, reframe the negative review as an opportunity to improve your service. 

For a comprehensive guide on crafting effective responses, explore our full article on responding to negative reviews.

How do you respond to a 5-star review?

Replying to a five-star review is no different than replying to other positive reviews or those with three or four stars. Be timely in your response, thank the reviewer for sharing their experience, and be sure to modify your response to reflect a particular detail, such as a team member or feature that the reviewer enjoyed. Your response doesn’t need to be long or over the top. Simply be authentic, appreciative, and concise. 

How do you thank someone for a positive review?

Responding to a positive review can be both quick and easy. Begin by thanking the reviewer for their feedback. Personalize your response by referencing something the reviewer particularly appreciated about your product or service, and invite them to take an action, such as visiting you again soon. Keep your response short, be genuine, and respond in as timely a manner as possible. 

How do you respond to Google reviews?

Google is the most used online review platform, with 83% of consumers turning to it to find business reviews. To respond to Google reviews: 

1. Sign in to your Google Business Profile and go to ‘Read reviews’.

2. Click ‘Reply’ on the review you want to address.

3. Write a personalized and professional response.

4. Post your reply.

Stay on top of responding to your Google reviews by responding quickly, as these can have a big impact on how potential customers see your business. 

How to respond to reviews with BrightLocal

Responding to reviews couldn’t be simpler than with BrightLocal’s all-in-one review management solution. Monitor feedback from all the top review sites, as well as the best review sites for your niche. 

BrightLocal makes it easy to respond to reviews by bringing together reviews from 80+ general and niche review sites into one handy dashboard. Here’s how to respond quickly using BrightLocal:

1. Connect your review profiles to your BrightLocal account to start monitoring your reputation.

2. Set up email alerts so you’re notified quickly when new reviews come in.

3. In your account, head to Reputation → Manage Reviews.

4. Click Respond on the Google or Facebook review, or click View to reply directly on other platforms.

5. Write your reply, or save time by choosing one of your saved review templates, or generating an AI-assisted response.

6. Submit the response, and ta-da! It will appear on the review shortly. For more detailed instructions, visit our Help Center.

Whether it’s five stars or one star, responding to online reviews is a simple but powerful way to show customers you care. With the right tools and processes in place, it’s easy to stay on top of feedback, protect your reputation, and show potential customers you’re always listening. 

When responding to negative reviews, one of the best responses is simply asking for more information and trying to find out what went wrong.

Despite your natural feeling of frustration, make your best effort to remedy the situation. Resolve the problem by apologizing and repairing it. If you resolve the issue, many customers will be happy to change their reviews.

Below I’ll run through steps covering how to respond to negative reviews online.

1. Keep calm and take a breath

It can be hard not to take personal insults and low-star ratings as being directed at us, but it is important to remember that sometimes people are venting their frustrations about something else. A good way of responding to a negative review might be to thank them for taking the time—yes, even if they didn’t like your business or service—and to ask what could have been done better in order to make things right with them.

Before responding to a negative review, take a moment to breathe deeply and think about it. If necessary, get up and walk around the block. The best thing to do is to settle your emotions before responding, as being angry with a customer is never a good outcome.

You might find it helpful to have a list of standard responses to refer to when responding to a customer who’s had a bad experience. In writing a reply to the reviewer, you can use these “canned” responses as a starting point. Then tailor your canned responses to each reviewer’s feedback to ensure people reading your reviewers don’t see too much repetition.

Taking a moment to think about what you want to say, or the kind of response you want to use, can be incredibly helpful—especially if you’re upset. 

Take the below response, for example. If emotions had been settled before responding, the responder might have delivered a better response, without the sarcasm. It would have been better to look at this situation from the perspective of asking if anything could have been done better to make things right with the reviewer.

2. Remember that you must respond to negative reviews

Bad reviews actually have the power to improve conversion rates, so it would be a shame not to take this golden opportunity to respond. Taking the time to respond to a negative review can result in a 16% boost in customer advocacy.

Remember that the most effective form of marketing is word of mouth. Businesses experience a 37% decline in customer advocacy simply by the act of not responding to negative reviews.

Be empathetic in your approach. Reviewers often just want to be heard. Sometimes, all it takes to make a customer happy is to show them that you have heard them and that you want to solve their problem. Customer satisfaction can be doubled by resolving a customer issue in a single contact, as you’re far more likely to get a repeat sale.

Over 70% of buying decisions are based on how a customer feels they are being treated, so do your best to make all of your customers feel valued – even the unhappy ones, as below.

3. Consider the type of reviewer you’re dealing with

There are many different types of reviews and reviewers, but there are a few categories into which most people fall. You’re guaranteed to make the response process faster and more effective if you take advantage of BrightLocal’s tips on different types of reviewers, like first-time, sharpshooters, and serial complainers, for example.

First-time reviewers: Consider whether the negative feedback is accurate. If it is, make internal changes to remedy the problem. When applicable, explain how you will prevent this issue from occurring again in the future. Also, if you disagree with the reviewer’s assertions, politely and professionally present your point of view.

Sharpshooters: When dealing with a short, confident review from an expert, keep in mind that brevity is the goal. Condense your response into clear and concise sentences rather than lengthy ones to better reflect this type of reviewer’s communication style.

Serial Complainers: The serial complainer can really hurt your business, so tread carefully. These reviewers have experience with similar businesses and know how to make them look bad in the process. To avoid this, take note of what other companies did when responding with them as well as avoiding making mistakes they made!

4. Resolve the issue

Sometimes customers leave reviews because they are disappointed or disgruntled, and not because of something you’ve done. If possible, try contacting them privately with a response that politely addresses their message.

Work to solve the problem with more than just a response. Discover what went wrong and why the reviewer was so dissatisfied. Search your database for their email or phone number and contact them. Instead of addressing the issue online, you’ll be able to speak directly and resolve it “in person.”

Efforts to resolve the problem show the customer (and others) you mean business. When customer trust is broken, it is critical to go the extra mile. Fixing the problem not only makes the customer happier, but other potential clients will see how important your customers are to your business, as you can see below.

5. Get a second opinion

Though it’s tempting to jump into defending yourself against unjustified complaints, responding with anger will do more harm than good. Responding in an informative manner, that acknowledges the customer’s frustration, will help you to avoid escalating any unnecessary problems.

To ensure that your response to a bad review is accurate, let an impartial third party read it before you post it online. Double-check your message and tone by sending the response to several colleagues to ensure that it “reads” well to a third party. This is important because your response may be interpreted as overly defensive or aggressive, and this would not help to win over the customer.

Share an example of what you have written with friends, family, and/or a private business network. Be transparent and open with the feedback you receive and make adjustments accordingly.

6. Remember that a well-written negative review response can increase sales

Look at the positive within the negative. Negative reviews will stay negative forever if you do not respond, and we all know that nothing is lost on the Internet. How you respond to negative reviews can provide consumers with insight into your business’ credibility.

In addition to fixing problems raised by negative reviews, there is another benefit. You gain the trust of potential customers. If you fix your mistakes, they will see that you are thorough and responsible, and that is certainly something to be valued as a business. 

This is a good time to gain insight into what your company may be doing wrong. Seeing the potential hidden within a negative review may help you improve your business. Look at the review and carefully consider what the person wrote.:

• Did they have a problem with a staff member? 
• What was their experience like at your location? 
• Has your product or service failed to meet their expectations? 

In analyzing what the customer says, look for larger issues that need to be addressed at your business, as in the example below.

7. Take the discussion offline

On the other hand, negative feedback can provide a wealth of useful information, because what your product or service lacks is sometimes more obvious to your customers than you.

Have you ever tried to collect customer surveys to get this information? A task of this nature is near-impossible. Although people may sincerely want to answer all the questions, sometimes they just forget about it when the daily rush gets to them. So reviews give you a lot of valuable feedback in this respect.

Additionally, this type of feedback gives you time to resolve issues before the problem escalates with other customers. The best cure is prevention. Your customers know better than anyone what is missing from your product, so pay extra attention to what they have to say.

According to Harris Interactive, 75% of customers believe it takes too long to reach a live agent on the phone. Increasingly, people use online reviews, social media, and other online methods for customer service and to voice their opinion publicly since it gets higher attention.

The best way to handle attention-seeking people is to take the discussion offline as soon as possible. Simply let the customer know you heard them, like the example below, and then ask them to call or email you personally so you can resolve the matter. 

8. Ask for a do-over

As long as you’ve taken steps to resolve the situation with an unhappy customer, you shouldn’t hesitate to politely request that they update/change their review to reflect the resolution.

One of the best ways to do this is to send an email outlining what happened, what you resolved, and the steps you’re taking to improve things going forward, and then politely asking if they would mind updating their review.

9. Get more positive reviews to push down the negative reviews

The vast majority of people read an average of 10 reviews before they decide to use a business. The review process is usually ordered chronologically, so if you keep a steady stream of positive reviews flowing in, you will see those negative ones extinguish over time.

The best way to counteract one negative review is to get a few more positive reviews to “push down” the negative review. Provide an easy way for your customers to write positive reviews (and respond to Google reviews) about your business.

Your business is worth a searcher’s time when it has online reviews. Easily and quickly create a steady stream of positive customer reviews for your company with Brightlocal’s Get Reviews tool.

10. Respond in a timely manner 

The clock begins ticking once reviews are posted. In the below example, the response was almost one month later and customers expect to hear back from you within 24 hours.

It’s important to respond seriously to negative reviews of your company, especially if the customer felt dissatisfied enough to write one.

Responding to negative reviews is a perfect example of the phrase “time is money”. Take note of any negative feedback when it appears on your radar and begin to formulate a response immediately. You can begin with an explanation that states, “We understand your concerns and are investigating the situation to determine how we can best address them. If you give us 24 hours, we will get back to you.” Follow up on your review by editing it and explaining what you’ve discovered and what’s next.

11. Identify and respond to fake reviews, too

Handling negative reviews with grace is a key to online reputation success. It’s important to understand how customers feel about your business online but to also be aware of who left a review. Occasionally a review can come from an ex-employee, a competitor or it can be fake. (Check out the obviously fake review in the image below).

It is important to understand the guidelines for each platform in order to know what can be flagged and how. The links below can you help you better identify how to proceed.

• How to Delete or Remove a Review
• How to Report a Fake Google Review
• Guidelines for the Top Local Review Sites

Reviews influence your reputation, impact purchasing decisions, and even affect your local search rankings. Google considers factors like the volume and frequency of reviews, as well as whether businesses actively respond to them. So, it’s not enough to collect reviews alone; you also need a documented process in place for responding to them.

Why Responding to Reviews Matters

Our Local Consumer Review Survey shows just how crucial timely responses are:

• 89% of consumers expect business owners to respond to all types of reviews. 
• 74% of consumers check at least two review sites before making decisions. 
• 38% of consumers expect a response within two or three days of the review being left. 
• 42% of consumers trust online business reviews as much as recommendations from family or friends.

A fast and thoughtful response can turn a neutral or negative review into a positive experience, reinforcing trust and customer loyalty.

Because timely review responses are so important, it can be helpful to have a few pre-prepared templates on hand.

The following examples will help you ensure that you always provide a professional, polished, and appropriate reply—no matter the sentiment of the feedback or how pressed for time you may be. 

Types of Review Responses You Need

Reviewers come in all forms—from brand evangelists to frustrated customers. So you can realistically expect a range of review styles—covering everything from a star rating with no text’ and ‘short and sweet feedback,’ to ‘lengthy storytelling’ and ‘venting complaints.’

Having a set of response templates prepared for different scenarios can save time while ensuring professionalism.

To address this range, you can either build your own custom templates or skip straight to some examples and adapt them for your business. Either way, you’ll need a selection of both positive review response templates and negative review response templates.

Crafting Effective Review Response Templates

A good review response starts with a few key building blocks: 

• Acknowledge the reviewer – Whether the feedback is positive or negative, start by thanking the reviewer for taking the time to share their experience.
• Reference their experience – If the review includes specific details, mention them in your response. For example, if they praise a team member, acknowledge that person by name. If they highlight great customer service, reinforce that in your reply.
• Encourage further discussion (if needed) – If the reviewer had a less-than-ideal experience, invite them to reach out via email, direct message, or phone. This demonstrates your willingness to understand and resolve issues.
• Extend an invitation to return – Conclude on a positive note, encouraging the customer to visit again.

How to Create Review Response Templates

Many reputation manager tools allow you to build and save review response templates for quick and efficient replies, helping you to streamline your review response process while maintaining a personal touch.

Here’s how to create and use templates in BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager:

1. Go to Reputation Manager in the main menu, and click on ‘Review Inbox.’ Once the tab is open, click on ‘Templates’ and then ‘Create Template’.

2. Add your copy to the main text box. If you want to personalize your template with the person’s first name or your business name, simply click the appropriate tags in the box above. Don’t forget to give your template a name as well. 

3. If you only want your template to be applied to reviews from a specific business, click the ‘Link to Client’ box and select the business from the list that appears. If the business does not appear in the list, you need to add the business as a client in BrightLocal. Here’s how.

4. Lastly, you can use the ‘Link to Rating’ option to choose which reviews you want your template sent to. You can choose to apply it to all reviews or only to reviews with a specific star rating. 

5. When you’re happy, click ‘Create Template.’

16 Customizable Review Response Templates

These positive/negative review response templates are ready to be copied, pasted, and edited for use straight away. 

Negative Review Response Templates

1. The ‘unfair’ 1-star review

Dealing with negative reviews can be tricky—especially when the review is erroneous or misrepresented—as you’re naturally starting from a place of irritation. So take a deep breath, open up this first negative review response template, and draft a cool, calm, and collected message.

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry to hear that your experience didn’t meet expectations. If you’re open to it, we’d love the opportunity to learn more and make things right. Please reach out to [contact info].

2. The ‘Did Not Use’ 1-Star Review

When a potential customer explains why they ‘didn’t use you,’ you have an opportunity to reply and reassure other potential customers that you want to address their concerns.

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

I’m sorry to hear about your disappointing experience with us. We always intend to provide great customer service and useful, transparent advice. Please accept our sincerest apologies that we didn’t live up to your expectations on this occasion. 

I’m thankful that you reached out to share your experience. Your valuable feedback helps us improve our processes and better serve our clients. Please reach out to us at [insert contact info] to discuss how we can make this right. 

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3. The ‘great but’ review

This review can be super frustrating to read. The reviewer admits that you offered a great experience, but they have docked a star anyway because the service or product was great but not exceptional. This kind of review is very useful to have on your profile because it offers several reasons why readers should engage with you. Having a concise and appreciative positive response review template will serve you well here. 

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re so happy to hear that you enjoyed [insert experience] and look forward to welcoming you again soon! 

4. The ‘Fake’ Review

Dealing with fake or misleading reviews can be challenging, but it’s important to stay composed and professional when responding. Ensure that your reply is factual and courteous, steering clear of any defensive language. If the review violates Google’s policies, you can flag it for removal. By responding calmly and taking the necessary actions, you can help maintain your business’s credibility and trust.

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We take all feedback seriously and strive to ensure our [clients/customers] have the best experience possible. However, we’re unable to locate your record in our system under the name [Customer’s Name/Details]. Please reach out to us at [contact information] so we can better understand your concerns and address them properly. We look forward to resolving this matter with you.

Positive Review Response Templates

5. The ‘Short and Sweet’ 5-Star Review

This is the kind of review that we all dream of… one that’s nice and easy to respond to! 

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

Many thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We’re very happy to hear that we met your expectations and were able to [insert detail] quickly! 

6. The ‘Brand Evangelist’ Review

Your brand evangelists love all of their interactions with your business, and they’re happy to share their enthusiasm with the world. These are the kind of reviews that put a smile on your face… so take the time to be nice back! 

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re delighted to hear about your recent experience with us, and we’re so pleased that you recommend our [insert product/service]. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, and we look forward to welcoming you back soon!

7. The ‘overall happy’ review

This customer offers a four- or five-star review, with an overall positive feel but with one or two little niggles. This is actually a wonderful review to have because it shows that you’re still prepared to fix any minor issues.

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

First of all, thank you so much for sharing your feedback with us. We really value your input and flagging areas where we can improve further. I’m so happy to hear that [insert staff name] was able to help you [insert outcome] and put things right. It sounds like you [insert end result]. I’m pleased we were able to help! 

8. The ‘professional reviewer’ review

This will typically be a balanced review, referencing both pros and cons. Because it comes from an influencer or from someone whose opinion is valued by peers, it requires a well-crafted, positive response that refers to the specific points raised. 

Response Template:

Hello [Reviewer Name],

It was great to hear that you enjoyed [insert visit/experience detail]. We really appreciate your detailed review and the fact that you [insert a plus from the review]. 

Thank you also for your feedback, which highlights where we can do better. We appreciate hearing about your experience and your thoughts about [insert reference]. Your comments are really helpful in highlighting opportunities to improve our service even further, and your recommendations are being addressed internally. 

We hope to welcome you back again soon!

Hospitality Industry Review Templates

9. The ‘Amazing Stay’ Review

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re delighted to hear that you had a fantastic stay at [Hotel Name]! Your kind words mean the world to our team, especially [Staff Member Name, if applicable]. We can’t wait to welcome you back for another great experience!

10. The ‘Disappointing Stay’ Review 

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re sorry to hear that your stay at [Hotel Name] didn’t meet expectations. Providing a great experience is our top priority, and we’d love to understand what went wrong. Please reach out to [contact info] so we can discuss your concerns and find a way to improve your experience.

Healthcare Industry Review Templates

11. The ‘Great Care’ Review 

Hello [Reviewer Name],

Thank you for sharing your experience at [Clinic/Hospital Name]. We’re so pleased to hear that [Doctor/Nurse/Staff Name] provided you with excellent care. Your feedback means a lot to our team, and we’re always here if you need anything in the future.

12. The ‘Concerns About Care’ Review

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re sorry to hear that your experience at [Clinic/Hospital Name] wasn’t as positive as we’d hoped. Patient care is our top priority, and we take concerns like yours seriously. Please contact [Patient Relations Team/Manager] at [contact info] so we can better understand your concerns and work toward a resolution.

Restaurant Industry Review Templates

13. The ‘Exceptional Dining Experience’ Review 

Hello [Reviewer Name],

Thank you for dining at [Restaurant Name]! We’re thrilled to hear that you enjoyed [specific dish, if mentioned] and that [Server Name, if applicable] made your visit special. We look forward to serving you again soon!

14. The ‘Poor Dining Experience’ Review

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re sorry to hear that your recent visit to [Restaurant Name] didn’t meet expectations. We strive to provide great food and service, and we’d love the opportunity to make things right. Please reach out to [contact info] to share more details, and we’ll do our best to address your concerns.

Home Services Industry Review Templates

15. The ‘Reliable and Professional Service’ Review

Hello [Reviewer Name],

Thank you for choosing [Business Name] for your [specific service, e.g., plumbing, landscaping]! We’re so glad we could assist you, and we appreciate your kind words about [Technician/Team Member Name]. If you ever need anything in the future, don’t hesitate to reach out.

16. The ‘Unresolved Service Issue’ Review 

Hello [Reviewer Name],

We’re sorry to hear that your experience with [Business Name] didn’t meet your expectations. Customer satisfaction is incredibly important to us, and we’d like to learn more about what went wrong. Please reach out to [contact info] so we can work on a solution that meets your needs.

Tips For Making Your Templates Feel Real

While having a few go-to review response templates is a great starting point, the real magic happens when you make those templates your own. Customizing your responses ensures they feel personal, genuine, and aligned with your brand’s values. Let’s walk through how to adjust your review templates for authenticity without losing that all-important efficiency.

1. Personalize Each Response

Even if you’re using a template, always take a moment to personalize your reply. Mentioning specifics from the review shows the customer you’ve paid attention to their feedback. It’s the little details that go a long way in building genuine connections. For example, if a reviewer mentions a particular team member or service, reference it in your reply. This not only acknowledges their experience but also makes the response feel more authentic and less like a canned message.

Example:
“Thanks for mentioning Sarah, we’re thrilled to hear she made your visit special! We’ll be sure to pass on the kind words.”

2. Be True to Your Brand’s Voice 

Your response should reflect your brand’s personality, whether that’s professional, friendly, or even humorous. If your business is known for its professional approach, maintain that tone. On the other hand, if you’ve cultivated a more relaxed or playful brand persona, feel free to infuse that into your responses. By staying consistent with your brand’s tone, you keep your communications aligned with the expectations of your audience.

Example of a casual tone:
“Hey Kate, thanks a ton for the kind review! We’re so happy to hear you had a great time, and we can’t wait to see you back!”

Example of a professional tone:
“Thank you for your thoughtful feedback, Kate. We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to serve you and look forward to welcoming you again.”

3. Acknowledge Specifics and Context 

Sometimes, a review provides useful information that deserves acknowledgment. If a customer highlights a challenge, mention how you’re addressing it, or if they compliment a particular aspect of your service, acknowledge that. This shows that you’re actively engaging with their experience and continuously improving your business.

Example for addressing a concern:
“We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback about your experience. Rest assured, we’re reviewing the issue you mentioned to ensure we prevent this moving forward.”

4. Keep the Tone Positive, Even in Negative Responses 

When responding to negative reviews, always aim to keep a positive, solution-focused tone. While it’s essential to address the concern, it’s equally important to express your desire to improve and ensure the reviewer knows you’re committed to making things right. Acknowledge the negative experience, but highlight the steps you’re taking to fix the issue.

Example:
“We’re truly sorry to hear your experience wasn’t up to par. Your feedback is invaluable, and we’re already working on the points you raised to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

5. Use the Reviewer’s Name When Possible 

Using the reviewer’s name adds a personal touch and helps to make your response feel more genuine. It shows that you recognize them as an individual, not just another comment on your page.

Example:
“Thank you, Alex, for sharing your experience with us! We’re thrilled you enjoyed your visit and hope to see you again soon.”

By taking the extra step to personalize your templates, you can show customers you care about their experience, making each response feel authentic and unique no matter how busy you get!

Conclusion

Having a predefined library of positive and negative review response templates can be an incredibly helpful asset. It speeds up your ability to craft personalized, professional responses that emphasize your gratitude for the feedback—whatever it might be.

With BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager, you can create and customize responses that fit your brand’s voice while staying efficient. Ready to take control of your reviews? Start a 14-day free trial today!

“Guaranteed” review removal scams thrive as a result, and many frustrated merchants and agencies fall victim to egregiously expensive “reputation defense” services, hoping they’ll have another trick up their sleeve. 

Here’s the good news: you don’t need to. Any business owner or agency can add a trick up their own sleeve and achieve better success than any reputation service. 

Why? Because Google’s review management tool and appeal form is free – you just have to know how to use it. 

As someone who has reported thousands of Google reviews that were successfully removed, I’m going to help you avoid the fees and double your success by sharing tips for:

1. Understanding which reviews can be removed.
2. The types of evidence you need.
3. How to remove a Google review.
4. Using the appeal form, common mistakes, and how to frame your argument.

Can I Delete Google Reviews Myself? Yes! Here’s How to Report Reviews Like a Pro

The first thing you need to be aware of is this review reporting tool and the appeal form found in the tool. It’s the first organic result when you search ‘how to remove a Google review’ (if you can make it past the ads).

Don’t report reviews directly from the review itself. Always report reviews from the tool instead. Though the appeal form is a lesser-known GBP feature, there are already many helpful walk-through guides and videos about the tool and appeal form, so I won’t get into that in this article.

Instead, I’m going to share some of my best advice on how to be most successful when using the review tool, the common mistakes I encounter, and the best kind of evidence to look for. If you want a simple walkthrough of using the tool, check out this helpful video from GBP Platinum Product Expert Joy Hawkins

Step 1: Understand Prohibited and Restricted Content Policies

Before we get into anything, you first need to be familiar with Google’s policies on prohibited and restricted content. The only reviews that can ever be removed are reviews that violate these policies. You can’t beg or pay Google to delete a Google review. The secret to successfully removing reviews is using these policies against Google, like a lawyer in court. The stronger case you can make (based on these policies), the better success you will have.

Step 2: Report the Review in the Google Review Tool

Technically, you can just report the review from GBP, Search, or Maps, but it is better to just go straight to the tool. When you first flag a review, you’ll be prompted to pick a category. You may notice not all violation categories are listed. This is a major reason you need to be familiar with the appeal form and all of the policies – some violations you can’t even report until you have the opportunity to appeal. 

If you aren’t sure which policy your report falls under, just pick the closest one.

For example, the policy prohibiting ‘unsubstantiated allegations of unethical behavior or criminal wrongdoing’ doesn’t fit into any of these categories. So just pick the closest, such as ‘Off-topic’ or ‘Harassment’.

After your initial report, you’ll need to wait at least three days before you can appeal, so my suggestion would be to start this process sooner rather than later.

Step 3: Identify Policy Violations and Gather Evidence

When reporting reviews, Google isn’t going just to take your word for it because you say it is a violation. You’ll need evidence. Keep in mind these important points:

• Google does not verify whether an account of an experience is true or false.
• Google doesn’t enter disputes over facts between the business owner and the review.
• You do not need to be a paying customer to leave a Google review.
• People can leave reviews for any experience with your business.
• Many people use an alias as their Google username, thereby making themselves anonymous.
• In reports, Google considers the reviewer’s public username. All evidence with the reviewer’s name must be in relation to the username that appears on the review. This may be their real name, but not always, so it’s just important to keep that in mind.
• Your report should be believable from an unbiased third-party observer. Think about it like presenting evidence to a jury.

For these reasons, it can sometimes be virtually impossible to prove an experience never occurred, even if you know it is fake. To be successful, you’ll want to draw a clear line between a specific policy and your evidence.

Here’s where I have the best success or see the most mistakes:

In Appeal, Be as Specific as Possible

I mentioned in the initial report that you could “just pick the closest category.”

DO NOT do that in the appeal. It’s critical to be specific now because you are submitting an argument that humans will most likely check. Explain your argument like you are explaining it to an actual kindergartener. And I’m not exaggerating. You may need to explain things that shouldn’t even need explanation.

For example, on more than one occasion, I have seen people be unsuccessful with reports when a reviewer called the merchant a “racist” or “homophobe”.

Some people quickly report this language under the ‘Hate Speech’ category.

But calling someone a racist isn’t hate speech – saying something racist is hate speech. This is an important nuance.

It doesn’t mean it’s not a violation, though. It just means that whichever Googler reviewed the report may have had a hard time understanding the violation argument. Many Google Support staff are multilingual, and English may not be their native language.

Accusing someone of being a racist or homophobic would more accurately fall under ‘unsubstantiated allegations of unethical behavior’ in the ‘Offensive Content‘ category. 

This may seem like semantics. Shouldn’t Google know it’s still a violation? Well, yes, probably. But this article isn’t about that. This article is about being successful when reporting reviews, so pay close attention to category definitions and pick the right category before your appeal. 

Check for Multiple Violations

I seem to have more success when there is more than one violation. In my experience, there seems to be a level of subjectivity with policy enforcement. One Googler may agree something is a violation, while another may not. Be sure you aren’t missing something secondary, even if you think there is already enough evidence for an egregious violation. It will improve your case.

Pay Close Attention to the Text

In my experience, Google first looks for violations within the review text itself. That’s why “rating-only” reviews are so difficult to remove. 

The algorithm can sometimes miss language that is indeed a violation, especially regional slang. First, determine if the language in the review has a possible violation you can explain.

For example, I saw one recently that called the merchant a “crook.” Be prepared to define the word crook. It might sound silly, but again, your report may not be reviewed by a native English speaker. Don’t assume they know what a crook is. My friend and unofficial Product Expert mentor, Amy Toman, pointed out that the word crook has several definitions. 

When asked to elaborate on the review text, Amy says, “You may also want to mention any nuance specific to your area or country. Words have different connotations in different countries and regions, even in a large geographic area like the US. It’s worth it to spell out the meaning specific to your area in your appeal.”

So be ready to explain the violation category and then define the word “crook” and why that is a violation in context. It’s safer to over-explain than not enough.

Because Google’s English dictionary uses Oxford Languages, I defer to Oxford Dictionary whenever possible (for English).

Becoming familiar with the guidelines can help you tell the story more effectively on why the words in a review are a violation (calling someone a crook can be an allegation of criminal behavior, but the algorithm or a non-native speaker may not catch that unless you spell it out). 

This can also be true with hate speech.

“Fake Engagement”

The first restriction in the guidelines, Fake Engagement, is by far the most common complaint I see. “I don’t know this person! Remove this Google review!” – sound familiar?

This is arguably the hardest policy violation to prove and have success with. Google isn’t going to take your word for it. You’ll need evidence. If it were as easy as simply claiming a review is fake, there would probably be no bad reviews on Google.

Proof of fake engagement might be:

• Facebook posts or viral videos calling for negative reviews.
• Reviews that flatly say in the review text that they did not have an experience with your business, such as admitting it is based on hearsay or a “friend’s experience”.
• Having many 1-star reviews in a short time frame, when that is out of the ordinary for the business. If you get one review a month, then randomly get ten bad reviews in a day – Google would investigate that. Point out this pattern.
• Proof that the reviewer’s name matches a competitor’s name. You can reference their website, LinkedIn page, etc., which shows they are part of a competing business.
• Photos of fliers or social media posts offering incentives for reviews, such as raffles or prizes
• Evidence of blackmail demanding money to remove a review. But this won’t always work because people do try to forge these. 
• Check the reviewer’s history – do they leave a lot of bad reviews for the same industry?

Saying you don’t know the person, that they weren’t a customer, or even proving they weren’t a customer isn’t enough – because they don’t need to be a customer. Fake engagement policy is more about deliberate attempts to manipulate a place’s rating, so that is what you should try to prove, not necessarily whether an event occurred or not.

Check the Reviewer Username for Pranks

It’s perfectly allowed to use an alias on your Google account. However, it can’t be inappropriate, like fictitious epithets intended as a prank or insult.

Maybe you remember when a local news station gained national headlines when they were duped into reporting offensive prank names on a live broadcast covering a plane crash.

Understandably, Google can miss nuances like this, too, and I have seen it. They don’t want to look dumb or offend their audience either, so these accounts are often suspended or hidden when reported. Be sure to explain very clearly what the name means when you report this type of thing!

Conflict of Interest

Maybe a disgruntled employee left a review. That is a violation, but you’ll need to prove it. 

• Does the name match any records you have? 
• Are they still up on your website as an employee? 
• Does the review specifically say or imply they were an employee?

You may need to get creative. I recently helped a lawyer who received a scathing retaliatory review from an opposing party in a custody trial. The lawyer was able to supply court records that showed the reviewer’s name matched the opposing parties and also showed the opposing party’s lawyer, who was also a competitor of the lawyer I was helping. 

This is all obviously a conflict of interest, and this review was successfully removed when the evidence was shown (even after hiring other reputation companies who failed in their efforts).

Misinformation

Does the review get into stating “facts” about health, finance, or law? 

Google takes this seriously. Misinformation on Google is a liability. If a reviewer says something wrong, explain how this misinformation or advice can negatively affect Google users’ health or finances. 

Personal Information and Harassment 

Does the review target a specific staff member by their full name or last name? This can often be removed.

Just keep in mind it isn’t considered personal information if your last name is part of your public-facing image or branding. Lawyers and doctors are a common example.

Doxxing and mass calls for reviews are also not allowed. I’ve seen various cases of viral TikToks calling for reviews targeting a merchant. Save that evidence! 

Obscenity 

Google encourages reviews that provide a helpful account of your experience, whether positive or negative. Using language to shock or emphasize criticism to others is often not allowed. The F-bomb or obvious obscenity is usually automatically filtered. However, some abbreviations can still be considered offensive if they portray the same meaning. 

Some words or idioms may only be considered vulgar to some people or cultures, so they can be missed at first, but Google may still remove them when they are appealed and properly explained.

If you can supply documented evidence online that explains how a phrase or abbreviation may be offensive or is offensive in your region specifically, use it as evidence in your appeal.

Gibberish, Rambling, Repetitive

Again, Google encourages reviews that actually help users. Incoherent rambling, typos, or gibberish is not desirable.

You’ll want to explain to Google that this content isn’t helpful, as the meaning is difficult to understand or just plain hard to read. Point out the specific excerpts rather than the whole review.

Keep an eye out for what appear to be AI reviews or exact copy-and-paste. Google also removes these types of reviews, especially when you are able to show evidence or a pattern.

Allegations

This is an often overlooked but quite effective violation category. I mentioned it already, but it’s under Offensive Content: ‘unsubstantiated allegations of unethical behavior or criminal wrongdoing.’

The evidence of this category would be in the review itself. 

• Did the reviewer accuse you of a crime? 
• Did they accuse you of unethical business practices? 
• Did they call you a scammer? 

There is a good chance you can delete these Google reviews, but usually only after an appeal, when Google removes them.

This category is extremely vague, and even after reporting thousands of reviews, it’s still unclear where the line is drawn with this category or how “unsubstantiated” is defined. However, many reviews with allegations of all kinds are removed when you are able to explain this policy in your appeal.

Some allegations may not be considered unethical in one industry but quite unethical in another. One industry-specific example was a law firm that was accused of accepting a gift for pro bono services. In the legal world, that would be unethical and may be defamatory because pro bono means ‘for the public good’ (and strictly without compensation). Some US states, such as New York, even require a certain number of hours of pro bono work from practicing attorneys. Be sure to explain similar industry nuances whenever applicable.

Step 4: Appeal

Once you have your evidence gathered, you are ready to submit a strong appeal. Some important tips:

1. You don’t have to wait for a decision to submit an appeal.
2. After three days, you can submit an appeal even if the decision is still pending. This can speed things up and improve your chances of removing the review because you will be able to include your evidence. There is no benefit of waiting.
3. Do not get emotional in the appeal. Stick to the facts, policies, and evidence. Pleading only distracts and will do more harm than good.
4. For review attacks (getting several negative reviews at once), you can select up to 10 in the review tool and then submit the appeal. This will allow you to submit the reviews as a batch, which will be more successful than one at a time. For larger attacks, I suggest going to the GBP Help Community. For ongoing attacks, Google may be able to block new reviews temporarily.
5. With a single 1-star rating and no text, it will be very hard to remove. It might not be worth the time chasing this one unless you have solid evidence the username matches a competitor or part of a coordinated review attack. It’s worth a try to flag it, but if it fails to come down, the appeal is less likely to help for no-text ratings.

Plan B: GBP Help Community

Another lesser-known option is that you can actually get one more shot on the GBP Help Community, even if you submitted an appeal and it was rejected. Product Experts, who are very familiar with the guidelines, can escalate reviews to Google if it looks like there was indeed a mistake and the review should be reconsidered.

How to Get the Help You Need from the Google Business Profile Help Community

Read More

Still Want to Hire an Expert? Here Are the Green Flags:

Not all paid services for review management are bad. Many merchants are too busy and prefer to hire a professional to handle it correctly. There are many reputable consultants and agencies available to help you delete Google reviews.

The biggest green flag to look for is not “working for free” until removal – like the “guaranteed” removal shams I mentioned and recently covered.

As a local SEO consultant, I sometimes consult my clients on negative review reporting. But this is always on an hourly basis because it’s consulting. I can’t guarantee review removal; I just know a lot about review reporting. Many other reputable vendors work similarly, charging for time and experience, which is usually more valuable anyway.

Wrapping Up: Take Ownership of Your Review Management

Unscrupulous reputation services are investing heavily in deceptive marketing tactics to take advantage of desperate merchants and Google’s weak policy enforcement. I’ve outlined how to delete Google reviews through the appeal process, and which reviews can be removed.

Even though “guaranteed” review removal isn’t possible, you can still be highly effective – without the need to hire anyone. By taking the time to understand Google policies along with the tips and common mistakes I’ve outlined in this article, any business can report and delete Google reviews just as effectively as a professional service at no cost.

Save this article for the next time you need to report a Google review. I encourage every business to first try on their own before considering paid assistance. It just might save you thousands of dollars!

At its core, schema is simply structured data that helps search engines understand what your pages are about. When implemented correctly, it can unlock eye-catching, rich results in Google, including star ratings, FAQs, and event listings. 

One of the most common schema questions we hear from local marketers is: 

“Can I use review schema for my local business?” 

The short answer: sometimes, but with very strict rules. 

In this guide, we’ll decode the guidelines around reviews schema, and walk you through how to implement it correctly. We’ll provide practical code examples, and alternative strategies for when review stars aren’t an option so you can confidently advise clients on whether review schema is right for them. 

What is review schema? 

Review schema (previously known as ‘reviews’ schema by Google) is a way of telling search engines about the reviews shown on your website. Schema is a type of structured data, that is, extra code you can add to a page to tell search engines about reviews and ratings. It provides clear information about: 

• Who wrote the review
• What was reviewed, e.g., the product, service, book, course, or movie
• The rating or score given 
• Optional details like the review date or a short description

When implemented correctly, review schema can show as rich results in Google, showing next to your website in search results or in the Knowledge Panel. These enhanced search results can include star ratings, review counts, and snippets from reviews. 

But of course, as with all things Google, adding schema markup doesn’t guarantee rich results will show up.  

Can you use review schema as a local business?

We understand why local business owners love star ratings in search results—they grab attention and build trust instantly. Unfortunately, for many local businesses, getting those stars to appear isn’t always possible.

In 2019, Google updated its review snippet guidelines and stopped showing “self-serving” review stars for LocalBusiness and Organization schema types. Google explained the change:

“Reviews that can be perceived as ‘self-serving’ aren’t in the best interest of users. We call reviews ‘self-serving’ when a review about entity A is placed on the website of entity A – either directly in their markup or via an embedded third-party widget. That’s why, with this change, we’re not going to display review-rich results anymore for the schema types LocalBusiness and Organization (and their subtypes) in cases when the entity being reviewed controls the reviews themselves.”

This means that even if you add LocalBusiness review markup to your website, it won’t generate the star ratings in Google search that business owners hope for. This is the case whether you add the reviews and schema yourself or embed a third-party widget pulling the reviews directly from review sites. 

Playing it safe with schema 

Schema can help your business stand out in search results, but using it incorrectly could cause big problems. 

Google may take manual action if your structured data is misleading. This means your website could lose eligibility for rich results or even be removed from search results entirely. Google has an extensive list of structured data issues that could lead to manual actions.

If a manual action happens, Google will notify you in Search Console. Fix the issues and request a review to get your eligibility restored.

For LocalBusiness review schema specifically, you won’t usually face a penalty for mistakes, but Google simply won’t display rich review results, so adding it incorrectly can be a waste of time.

Using review schema for products and services 

Even though LocalBusiness review schema won’t trigger star ratings in search, there is still a way for eligible local businesses to use review markup effectively and without breaking any rules. 

The key is to focus on products or services offered by your business rather than the company as a whole. Google treats these as reviewable items, which means you can display review-rich results for them in search.

Products and Services share almost identical review properties in schema. The difference comes from Google’s side: Product reviews are explicitly supported and documented for review snippets in search results, while Service reviews are valid according to Schema.org but less directly highlighted in Google’s Search guidelines. 

In practice, that means Product reviews are more reliably shown, whereas Service reviews may appear but aren’t guaranteed. Google could stop showing reviews for services like it did for local businesses at any moment, so don’t count on this being the case! 

It’s important to only add review schema to product or service pages that contain reviews. Avoid applying it on pages like your homepage where no real reviews exist. This ensures your markup remains accurate, compliant, and eligible for rich results.

Product and service schema properties 

When building review schema, you’ll usually work with two key properties: Review and aggregateRating. 

• Review is used to mark up details in individual customer reviews, like the reviewer’s name, the date posted, the review content, and the star rating.
• AggregateRating is used to show the overall score for a product or service, based on multiple reviews.

Property	Sub-properties (examples)	Definition
aggregateRating	ratingValue, reviewCount, ratingCount, bestRating, worstRating	The overall rating based on a collection of reviews or ratings.
Review	author, datePublished, reviewBody, reviewRating	A single review of the service.
reviewRating	ratingValue, bestRating, worstRating	The rating given in an individual review (nested inside review).

Review stars in other places 

While it’s not possible to use localBusiness schema on your website for reviews, it doesn’t mean stars will never show for your business in other places. 

Business listing sites like Yelp are still eligible to show star ratings in search. For the best chance of your business’s stellar reputation being noticed, make sure you’ve claimed your listing on all the best general and niche sites. Search your keywords and see what potential customers may be seeing, then claim these listings—no code needed! 

It’s important to note that review schema on your website does not affect your Google Business Profile (GBP). The reviews and star ratings that appear on your GBP are entirely controlled by Google and come from customer submissions on Google itself. Adding structured data to your site won’t affect the stars on your business profile, nor will it transfer your website reviews to Google.

How do you add schema?

Adding schema means using a type of code to explain your content to search engines by placing it in the <head>, <body>, or <footer> of a page. This will not be visible to visitors to your website. 

You can do this with: 

• JSON-LD: A block of JavaScript added in the <head> or <body> of the page. It’s easy to add and maintain, and it doesn’t affect page layout, and is preferred by Google.
• Microdata: Added directly into HTML elements. It works anywhere, but can be harder to manage since it mixes with page content
• RDFa: Also added in HTML attributes, but it is more complicated and less commonly used. 

Generating review schema 

If you’re savvy with code, create the schema yourself. If not, you can use a tool like Schema.Dev’s Schema Builder for Structured Data Chrome extension or Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to build it for you. It’s simpler than you might think once you get your head around it, promise! 

Choose your data type (likely Products if you’re looking to markup a product review), then add your page URL. 

Highlight the section of the page you want to tag, and right-click to find the appropriate property (e.g., reviewer, review date, aggregateRating). Once you’ve marked up all relevant sections, click Create HTML to generate the structured data. 

Adding and testing schema

Add this to the <head>, <body>, or <footer> code of the page (or ask your developer if you have one!) 

It’s very important to test your code, as it’s really easy for mistakes to sneak in. Use Google’s Rich Results Test or Schema.org’s Schema Markup Validator to check the code or page URL for errors or warnings. The example below shows what happens if ‘reviewRating’ is missed inside the Review object. 

Google may take some time to recognize the markup, so keep a close eye on Google Search Console for any structured data or warnings over the next few weeks.

Example reviews schema for products and services

So now we know when and how review schema can be used, let’s look at what it actually looks like in practice. Below are some simple JSON-LD examples you can copy and adapt for your own websites.

Example schema for products 

Example schema for services 

What to do if you aren’t eligible for review schema? 

If your business isn’t eligible for review schema under the LocalBusiness guidelines and doesn’t offer products or services with their own reviews, it’s time to accept that review stars won’t appear in search results. But this doesn’t mean your hard-earned reviews go to waste. Other platforms may still use structured data to understand your business, and there are a lot of schema types that you will be eligible for. 

The key is to focus your efforts where you can make an impact. Mark up your address, contact information, opening hours, and frequently asked questions to help Google better understand your business. For a deeper dive, check out our full LocalBusiness schema guide.

Quick review schema rules to remember

Allowed → Product/service reviews (may show stars).

Allowed but ignored → LocalBusiness reviews (Google won’t show stars).

Risky → Fake / hidden/misattributed reviews (can trigger penalty).